ABSTRACT
David Mamet writes about a society baffled by its own contradictions, a culture with neither historical roots nor present energy. His characters inhabit a world of which they can make little sense, since they are victims as much of their own incomprehension as of any malign force. Mamet emerged as a writer when America was already showing signs of retreating from that political commitment and engaged art which had in many ways typified the 1960s. In what Tom Wolfe called the 'me' decade, an increasing narcissism was indeed apparent. Speaking of the 'new narcissist' Lasch observes that, 'Liberated from the superstitions of the past, he doubts even his own existence', and in a sense this is the starting-point for Edmond, which begins with a fortune-teller's diagnosis: The world seems to be crumbling around us. The play concerns Edmond, a man in his mid-thirties, who decides to leave his wife.
